Ed Stein Celebrates an Historic Moment

But all is not over for our manned space capability.
Indulging my inner geek!
From Space.com:

Boeing's Private Space Taxi to Take Flight by 2016

Helping to pave the road for the future of commercial spaceflight, Boeing is hard at work on the research and development of a new space capsule aimed at flying people to the International Space Station. CREDIT: Boeing

With NASA's space shuttle fleet now permanently grounded, aerospace giant Boeing is aiming to fly astronauts to the International Space Station aboard a new private spaceship as early as 2015 or 2016, company officials say.
Boeing's CST-100 capsule (short for Commercial Space Transportation-100) is being designed to ferry astronauts to and from the space station and other destinations in low-Earth orbit. The spacecraft will initially launch from Florida atop United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 rocket, but the company is not ruling out other booster options in the future, officials have said.
The capsule is being designed as part of a NASA program that supports the development of a new fleet of commercially built spaceships to fill the gap made by the retirement of the shuttle program.
"It's been an interesting last couple of years for us," Roger Krone, president of Boeing's network and space systems, told reporters this month. "I think many people in the industry associate Boeing with the shuttle program and the International Space Station. [This is] kind of a chance for us to rethink what our space strategy is."


And on the same topic, a competing private enterprise to Boeing, (pun intended) IS flying now, well, a week from now, duplicating the space shuttle's service to the international space station:

From the Montreal Gazette:

SpaceX delays trip to space station

 Reuters

A photo from the trial. Photograph by: Handout , SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies, a privately held firm founded and run by entrepreneur Elon Musk, is delaying its trial cargo run to the International Space Station, Musk announced Monday. "Am pushing launch back approximately a week to do more testing on Dragon docking code. New date pending coordination with NASA," Musk said in a Twitter post. The company, also known as SpaceX, is expected to be the first private company to fly to the $100 billion research complex, which is owned by the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada. With the retirement of the space shuttles last year, NASA is looking to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp to take over flying U.S. cargo to the space station, which orbits about 240 miles above Earth. The companies hold combined contracts worth $3.5 billion for cargo delivery services. Launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo capsule on SpaceX's trial run to the station was slated for April 30, but the mission is being delayed about a week to allow more time for engineers to test software needed for the capsule's berthing at the station, Musk said in his post. Last week, NASA cleared SpaceX for launch on April 30, pending a final review of its flight software. The company successfully launched and recovered a test Dragon capsule in December 2010. SpaceX is among several firms vying to develop space taxis to fly astronauts to the station as well. More information about a new launch date for SpaceX is expected later this week.